The governor’s office has been keeping communications tight. Three state politics reporters discuss the unusual lack of access and its public impact.

Another surprising aspect of the first few months of the Ferguson administration was a lack of communication with the public, particularly through the press.

Gov. Bob Ferguson was slow to hold weekly press conferences during the first few months of the legislative session and slow to provide reporters with information about his whereabouts. He also sent a memo to state agencies requiring all public communication to go through the governor’s office before it is released.

In this episode, host Sara Bernard sits down with Cascade PBS reporter Laurel Demkovich, Washington State Standard reporter Jerry Cornfield and Axios reporter Melissa Santos to discuss the unusually limited access to the governor’s office so far, and why that matters.

Despite multiple requests, Governor Ferguson’s office did not grant us an interview for this series. Read more about Governor Ferguson from reporter Laurel Demkovich here.

--- Credits

Reporter: Laurel Demkovich

Host/Producer: Sara Bernard

Story editor: Ryan Famuliner

Executive producer: Sarah Menzies

Production Manager: Adam Brown

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Northwest Reports is made possible by listeners like you. If you would like to join the members who help us create this series, go to cascadepbs.org/nwreports. In addition to supporting our journalism, members receive great member benefits, including Cascade PBS Passport, with extended access to an on-demand library of local and PBS favorites.

What’s with all the criticism? Pollster Stuart Elway and state Sen. Jamie Pedersen think it could be the governor's centrism, which irks both sides.

Voters aren’t too happy with Gov. Bob Ferguson’s first few months as governor. A new Cascade PBS/Elway poll found that the governor has the lowest first-six-month job rating of any Washington governor in more than 30 years.

But it’s not just the governor who got a bad score from voters. The Legislature also got low marks, and the general mood of voters in our state is gloomy.

In this episode, host Sara Bernard and Cascade PBS state politics reporter Laurel Demkovich talk with pollster Stuart Elway about the results of his most recent poll and why voters may be unhappy with Ferguson right now.

Then, Senate Majority Leader Jamie Pedersen, D-Seattle, talks about his relationship with Ferguson, whom he’s known for decades, and explains why he’s not surprised by Ferguson’s more moderate approach.

Despite multiple requests, Governor Ferguson’s office did not grant us an interview for this series. Read more about Governor Ferguson from reporter Laurel Demkovich here.

--- Credits

Reporter: Laurel Demkovich

Host/Producer: Sara Bernard

Story editor: Ryan Famuliner

Executive producer: Sarah Menzies

Production Manager: Adam Brown

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Northwest Reports is made possible by listeners like you. If you would like to join the members who help us create this series, go to cascadepbs.org/nwreports. In addition to supporting our journalism, members receive great member benefits, including Cascade PBS Passport, with extended access to an on-demand library of local and PBS favorites.

At first, Democratic Gov. Bob Ferguson appeared to cross the aisle. Lawmakers on the right were thrilled – until they weren’t.

Gov. Bob Ferguson’s inaugural address wasn’t what anyone expected from the new governor, and it set the tone for a challenging legislative session in which the new executive struggled to win over Democratic and Republican lawmakers, activists and voters.

The speech was a pleasant surprise to Republicans, who heard many of their own ideas reflected in the governor’s words. But by the end of the session, that enthusiasm faded as Ferguson approved hundreds of Democrat-backed laws, including the largest tax hike in state history.

In this episode, host Sara Bernard and Cascade PBS state politics reporter Laurel Demkovich sit down with Rep. Chris Corry, R-Yakima, to talk about his optimism for the new governor — and how his hopes were dashed.

Despite multiple requests, Governor Ferguson’s office did not grant us an interview for this series. Read more about Governor Ferguson from reporter Laurel Demkovich here.

--- Credits

Reporter: Laurel Demkovich

Host/Producer: Sara Bernard

Story editor: Ryan Famuliner

Executive producer: Sarah Menzies

Production Manager: Adam Brown

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Northwest Reports is made possible by listeners like you. If you would like to join the members who help us create this series, go to cascadepbs.org/nwreports. In addition to supporting our journalism, members receive great member benefits, including Cascade PBS Passport, with extended access to an on-demand library of local and PBS favorites.

The founder and editor of 'The Needling' on why Seattle is so easy to make fun of and how comedy can help us process the news.

Seattle’s high cost of living, policing and tech industry fuel a lot of local headlines, including those published by The Needling, “Seattle’s Only Real Fake News.”

On May 31, the Northwest Reports team invited four local changemakers to the Cascade PBS Ideas Festival and asked them to speak candidly about their opinions on Seattle. The guests took the stage to both celebrate and throw a little shade at a flawed city that they still love.

The fourth and final episode of Northwest Reports Live features Lex Vaughn, the founder and editor-in-chief of The Needling, often referred to as Seattle’s version of The Onion.

In this episode, Vaughn talks about why Seattle is so easy to poke fun at; shares the Needling headlines that have gotten the biggest reactions over the years; and explores the ways humor can help us process what’s happening in the news.

--- Credits

Producers: Maleeha Syed, Sara Bernard

Story editor: Ryan Famuliner

Executive producer: Sarah Menzies

Production Manager: Adam Brown

Production Engineer: Resti Bagcal

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Northwest Reports is made possible by listeners like you. If you would like to join the members who help us create this series, go to cascadepbs.org/nwreports. In addition to supporting our journalism, members receive great member benefits, including Cascade PBS Passport, with extended access to an on-demand library of local and PBS favorites.

The founder of Hey, Black Seattle! talks about the good — and complicated — realities of building community in the PNW as a person of color.

It can be tough to find a sense of community in Seattle, where it’s rainy most of the year and there’s a notorious social freeze to break through. It can be even harder navigating those barriers if you’re not white.

In the third episode of Northwest Reports Live, which showcases conversations with Seattle changemakers at the Cascade PBS Ideas Festival, Kiesha B. Free talked about the good — and complicated — realities of living here.

Free is a speaker, facilitator, emcee, stand-up comedian and former business leader at Time and Microsoft. She also founded Hey, Black Seattle!, an online resource and movement that she created to connect and nurture Seattle’s Black community.

Free shares why she started Hey, Black Seattle!; addresses the myth that there are no Black people here; and weighs in on whether the city’s progressive reputation is well-earned.

--- Credits

Producers: Maleeha Syed, Sara Bernard

Story editor: Ryan Famuliner

Executive producer: Sarah Menzies

Production Manager: Adam Brown

Production Engineer: Resti Bagcal

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Northwest Reports is made possible by listeners like you. If you would like to join the members who help us create this series, go to cascadepbs.org/nwreports. In addition to supporting our journalism, members receive great member benefits, including Cascade PBS Passport, with extended access to an on-demand library of local and PBS favorites.

The creator of “View from the Floor” describes how people’s experiences in the Emerald City differ depending on their physical abilities.

Seattle’s got a lot to offer, whether you’re drawn to the city for its picturesque views or its rich cultural history. But people’s experiences of the Emerald City can vary a lot.

The guest in this episode of Northwest Reports Live, recorded at the Cascade PBS Ideas Festival on May 31, is Mindie Lind. She’s a local writer, musician, filmmaker and overall creative person who’s working on an animated feature film about “sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll without legs.”

Lind has also written about some unpleasant experiences she’s had in Seattle, specifically the inaccessible spaces she’s had to navigate as a person born without legs.

She addresses all of that and more in this episode which, fair warning, does include some explicit language.

--- Credits

Producers: Maleeha Syed, Sara Bernard

Story editor: Ryan Famuliner

Executive producer: Sarah Menzies

Production Manager: Adam Brown

Production Engineer: Resti Bagcal

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Northwest Reports is made possible by listeners like you. If you would like to join the members who help us create this series, go to cascadepbs.org/nwreports. In addition to supporting our journalism, members receive great member benefits, including Cascade PBS Passport, with extended access to an on-demand library of local and PBS favorites.

The founder of Vanishing Seattle, a digital archive documenting disappearing spaces, addresses loss and joy in a changing city.

It seems that everyone has an opinion about Seattle as the city grows, residents get priced out and businesses disappear.

In the latest Northwest Reports series, recorded live at the Cascade PBS Ideas Festival on May 31, Sara Bernard and Maleeha Syed asked influential community members to share their thoughts on the city. The four guests featured in this series have launched projects and used their platforms to cultivate community here. In these conversations for Northwest Reports Live, they talked about their lived experiences and pushed back on widely held beliefs about this place.

The guest for the first episode is Cynthia Brothers, who founded Vanishing Seattle, a media movement that documents the displacement and disappearance of institutions, businesses and cultures in the city.

Brothers addresses the narrative that Seattle’s best days are behind us; why a business shutting down means more than just the loss of that physical space; and how she still finds joy even as she watches a city that she loves change.

--- Credits

Producers: Maleeha Syed, Sara Bernard

Story editor: Ryan Famuliner

Executive producer: Sarah Menzies

Production Manager: Adam Brown

Production Engineer: Resti Bagcal

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Northwest Reports is made possible by listeners like you. If you would like to join the members who help us create this series, go to cascadepbs.org/nwreports. In addition to supporting our journalism, members receive great member benefits, including Cascade PBS Passport, with extended access to an on-demand library of local and PBS favorites.

Despite ambitious goals toward combating climate change, Oregon and Washington lag far behind other states when it comes to adding renewable energy.

Our series It’s Not Easy Going Green focused on the struggles around the creation of new green energy projects. But it turns out that even if Oregon and Washington built all the wind and solar farms anyone could want, there’s just not enough grid capacity in the Northwest to deliver that energy to people’s homes.

That’s according to a new investigation from Oregon Public Broadcasting and ProPublica. OPB reporters Tony Schick and Monica Samayoa scrutinized the Northwest’s transmission grid and its operator, the Bonneville Power Administration, which in the past decade has hooked up only one wind or solar plant, and that was an add-on to an existing plant.

So, for a bonus episode of the series, Cascade PBS investigative reporter Brandon Block sat down with Schick and Samayoa to compare notes on why the Pacific Northwest’s dream of clean energy remains so far from reality.

Read Schick and Samayoa’s reporting, “How the Pacific Northwest’s Dream of Green Energy Fell Apart” and “Higher Prices, Rolling Blackouts,” at OPB.org or ProPublica.org.

--- Credits

Producers: Maleeha Syed, Sara Bernard

Reporter: Brandon Block

Story editor: Ryan Famuliner

Executive producer: Sarah Menzies

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Northwest Reports is made possible by listeners like you. If you would like to join the members who help us create this series, go to cascadepbs.org/nwreports. In addition to supporting our journalism, members receive great member benefits, including Cascade PBS Passport, with extended access to an on-demand library of local and PBS favorites.